Another Chapter Closes

A great and courageous American is gone. Another one, I should say–with the recent passing of luminaries like Gore Vidal and Ray Bradbury and others . . . . He didn’t rush us into a war; he traveled to another world in peace, for all of us humans here on Earth. He was in the military but he didn’t bomb anyone–rather he and his fellow astronauts rode a missile into the depths of the sky . . . .

I watched the first Moon landings when I was four years old–I thought we’d have Moon-bases and personal rocket-packs. I really believed it. Even well into my adolescence I still thought there was a remote chance that I would get to the Moon myself. Seems silly now. When I look around and see all that this nation is NOT achieving, with its choice of leadership restricted by greed to the likes of Romney and Obama, the future looks not just uncertain but almost unavoidably bleak. And that seems to be likely not just for the U. S. A. but for the rest of the world as well. It’s the end of an era, alright.

But.

About two weeks ago Curiosity landed on Mars. We are still leaving our footprints on other worlds. Perhaps we can still find our way back to that dreamtime where we threw fire at the sky and hoped to build castles among the constellations.

"Poetry Fetter'd, Fetters the Human Race! Nations are Destroy'd, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry Painting and Music, are Destroy'd or Flourish! The Primeval State of Man, was Wisdom, Art, and Science."--William Blake

"Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top."--Edward Abbey

"I believe books will never disappear. It is impossible . . . . Of all mankind's diverse tools, undoubtedly the most astonishing are his books . . . . If books were to disappear, history would disappear. So would men."--Jorge Luis Borges

“Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.”--Albert Einstein

"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

". . . surely the equation of bland nonpartisanship with objectivity--a silly notion fostered by the worst traditions of television news reporting--must be rejected. We may scrutinize a known critic more carefully, but ultimately we must judge his arguments, not his autobiography."
--Stephen Jay Gould

"Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts."--Mary Harris "Mother" Jones

"It was not intelligent to make an opposition between literature and science. It is no more legitimate than an opposition between literature and 'classics' or between
literature and history."--H. G. Wells

“It is a scientific truism that less data will always support more hypotheses.”--Robert L. Pitman

"He who is a slave against his will, will be able to become free. He who has become free by the favor of his master and has sold himself into slavery will no longer be able to be free."--The Gnostic Gospel of Philip

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."--Albert Einstein